Nitro, WV
How exposed is Nitro to wildfire?
USFS scores Nitro at the 64th national percentile for wildfire risk to structures (well above the national norm for wildfire risk), a figure built from 4,051 real buildings rather than raw vegetation cover. (Source: USFS's Wildfire Risk to Communities methodology.)
Separately from the risk score above, Nitro's burn probability — fire likelihood with no building count factored in — sits at the 65th percentile nationally.
What "at risk" means for the buildings here
Most of Nitro's buildings (85.8%) sit in the Indirect zone, where wind-blown embers rather than flame front are the mechanism USFS is scoring — ember-resistant vents and non-combustible roofing are the interventions this pattern favors, more than defensible space alone.
How Nitro compares
There's little gap between Nitro's 64th national percentile and its 56th percentile inside West Virginia, which means the state comparison mostly confirms what the national score already shows. Among the 31,521 US communities USFS scores, Nitro ranks 11,332 for wildfire risk (1 is highest) and 4,189 by building count (1 is largest). Within West Virginia alone, it ranks 189 of 429 places by risk. See the full county-by-county picture for West Virginia on its state page.
Shopping for coverage in Nitro
Nitro's high rating (64th percentile) puts it among the places where the national carrier-pullback trend is most relevant — not a guarantee of a coverage problem, but a reason to shop rather than assume.
Lowering exposure, not just insuring around it
Because 85.8% of Nitro's buildings sit in the Indirect zone, sealing the ember pathway (vents, roofing, gutters) is the intervention this page's data actually supports — see the home-hardening guide.
Where Nitro's figures come from
The methodology guide shows exactly how USFS turned 4,051 counted buildings into the percentiles shown above for Nitro. The exposure-zones guide covers what Nitro's dominant indirect exposure actually means, with real examples from across the dataset.